


Her Own Thing

by Maitimiel



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Ministry of Magic, and a little burnt out, but it all ends well, hermione is an idealist, not cursed-child compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-07 14:42:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7718785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maitimiel/pseuds/Maitimiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione is divided between her work at the ministry and trying a different approach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Her Own Thing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Irusu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irusu/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing for you. <3

Hermione was not the kind of person who normally would leave her stuff laying around on the floor, but the relief she felt when she dropped the heavy bag that had been cutting through her shoulder for the past hour made her forget all about it. It was _late_ , she was _exausted_ , and once she closed the door behind her, she could not muster the energy to do much other than lean on it and close her eyes, wishing she could drop all the tiredness of the past months along with the bag.

Harry gave a small cough from the kitchen door, and nodded to a pot of hot tea. With a groan, she raised herself and joined him, trying unsuccessfully to will a headache away. 

\-----

Every morning she would get out of bed before sunrise and get a teapot going. She would finish work from the previous night in the kitchen while Harry slept in his room. He too worked late ours frequently, but at least no one gave him work to finish at home. She sighed. She should be more charitable. It wasn't his fault.

Really, it wasn't so much the amount of work that annoyed Hermione the most. She was used to working hard, and she hadn't expected anything less working for the ministry. To the ministry, the aftermath of war could be felt in the way of endless paperwork, complicated diplomatic negotiations with many different parties, and the undoing of everything Voldemort's rule had caused in its short duration. It was rather a lot.

What made her upset was actually the fact that even though she worked like crazy every day, and knew her coworkers did the same, many things seemed to remain exactly the same as they ever were. She would have thought that the end of the war and a general change in public opinion would mean more possibilities to improve the relationship between Wizards and centaurs, for example, not to mention house elves. Her boss had a different opinion.

"It is just too soon," she would say whenever Hermione brought something of the sort up, "As a community, we are not ready for that yet. We must first fix the damage of the war, and then we might think of deeper reformulations." It was not too unreasonable in theory, but Hermione had a feeling that _as a community_ the wizarding world might never be ready enough. They might need a little push. 

Wich was why she had applied to the Department of Magical Creatures Regulation, to begin with. She figured it would be easier to push from the inside. It seemed she had been wrong, though. 

\-----

She had meant to meet Ron for lunch, but he couldn't make it. Something to do with an escaped dragon, or dragon dung, or whatever. She was glad he was enjoying to work with Charlie, but couldn't for the life of her imagine what was so fun about getting second-degree burns on a daily basis. 

Unfortunately, she really wanted to talk to someone right then. 

She had been offered what was basically a promotion. Instead of dealing with the paperwork related to several cases of abuse of the rules, she would assist her boss directly, as a junior secretary. It would mean a lot less work to take home. She did like Rose. Her boss had been always very enthusiastic about having Hermione there, and could always be trusted to speak her mind, even if she knew people weren't going to like what she was going to say. Hermione might disagree with her often, but she still respected her.

And yet, she didn't really want to accept it.

She kept thinking about the organization she had tried to fund while in Hogwarts, in what seemed like a lifetime away. At that time, she didn't have the resources or knowledge to get people to see the importance of her cause, but now...

Her teenage plan seemed much more appealing to her now than the prospect of staying where she was. Her job was almost Sisyphean. Thinking about her promotion should make her feel excited, and she only felt wary. But the idea of leaving, of starting something of her own, to work actively towards change, that was refreshing.

And terrifying.

If only she could run her ideas through someone and see if they thought it was crazy. She checked her watch. Harry had been busy getting scolded for something when she passed in front of his department on her way out, and she decided against asking him to eat with her.

The streets were busy and noisy, and she barely looked around herself as she made her way to a Chinese restaurant on the next block, deep in thought. 

She had just finished picking up her food when a voice called her. Hermione turned around to see her boss, Rose, already sitting alone at a table behind her. She moved closer and Rose asked politely "Are you meeting someone?" When Hermione shook her head, she smiled and said, "Well, keep me company, then, will you?"

She sat down, a little awkwardly. Rose pretended not to notice and started a casual conversation. It wasn't quite small talk, but she didn't really mention anything about work, either. Hermione felt a pang of guilt for even thinking about leaving when there was so much yet to be done. Her boss was counting on her. 

She was quiet, and after a while, her boss apparently gave up dancing around it, and just asked her directly, not without kindness, "Is something wrong, Miss Granger?"

Hermione swallowed. She had not, technically, given an answer yet to her proposition. Rose had spoken to her in the morning and asked for an answer by the next day, and then resumed their usual work. Yet Hermione felt like it was mostly assumed she would just say yes, and she was anxious about disappointing everyone. 

She also didn't want to close the door to the opportunity of staying in the department, should she decide upon it. So she tried to keep her face very neutral as she spoke, "I just have a lot on my mind, lately."

Rose hummed, and was silent for a while. She cut absently through a piece of chicken, before replying, "I suppose. We haven't really talked about your expectations regarding this job since you started, have we?"

Hermione was startled. Did she give herself in, unintentionally? But her boss didn't seen mad, or upset. She actually sounded very casual and unconcerned. Hermione tried not to overthink the entire conversation and just answered, carefully, "I don't think so?"

"No, we haven't," Rose gave a light smile and went on, "I was wondering if your expectations were still being met, and if would like to bring up to me."

"I," she tried to think of a diplomatic answer. "I still think this is very important work, Madam."

"Well, I hope so, I've dedicated my life to it," Rose laughed as Hermione blushed. "But that doesn't mean you must do the same. Is this what _you_ want, Miss Granger?"

Hermione was speechless. Her boss lifted and eyebrow and spoke again, "I couldn't help noticing you were not terribly happy about my proposition earlier today."

She closed her eyes for a moment, her eagerness to please almost kicking in. But Rose had always been honest with her, and she was an adult, damn, she could face this conversation. 

"Actually, I'm not entirely sure this is the right job for me." She breathed out. There. It hadn't been so hard, had it? She opened her eyes and Rose was looking amusedly at her. She felt herself blush again. 

"I thought it might be the case. And do you have something else in mind?" 

Hermione sighed and resigned herself. "Not really. I just wish I could _do_ more. Not that we don't do a lot! But I think I want to do something different. Like an independent organization or something."

Rose looked pensive. "You could do that. You could even succeed, I think."

"Do you?" Hermione couldn't stop herself from asking, eagerly.

"Of course. I didn't hire you because I thought you were incompetent. You do know this would take a lot of work of a whole different kind, right?"

"Yes. But I haven't decided yet! I really do believe in what we're are trying to do. I'm just not sure that I fit there so well."

Rose nibbled at a lucky cookie, still unconcerned. "I think is more of a choice, really. Still, you don't need to answer right now. But Hermione," Rose lowered her tone as she called her by her fist name for the first time, "As I said, I hired you cause I believe you're a good asset to our office. I don't see how some more experience could hurt that."

\-----

Harry and Ron were both sitting on the couch when she arrived, eating chocolate frogs and playing muggle videogames. She resolutely took the box she was carrying inside her room, and then came back with several folders that she threw on the table, quickly stopping to give Ron a peck on the cheek.

"You're home early," Harry commented, losing spectacularly to Ron. 

Ronald rose, smugly, and stretched his long limbs before coming to stand behind her in the kitchen. "Sorry about lunch, it was chaos today."

"It's okay, I just had lunch with my boss instead." She started looking through the files she had separated. Rose had given her the contacts of many people who might be interested in participating in some way of her new organization, and a list of cases when people had attempted similar things before, to varying degrees of success. She had a lot of research to do and it didn't scare her at all.

"Do you still have work?" Ron asked, running his hands over her shoulders and massaging the tense spots, "I swear they are taking advantage of you, Hermione, you're too willing to..."

"It's not work," she interrupted, still studying the file in front of her, "Well, not yet. I quit."

"You what?" Ron asked surprised. Harry made a shocked noise and fell down from the couch. 

"I quit my job at the ministry," she answered matter-of-factly, and looked over to their disbelieving faces, "It was a very interesting lunch."

They were apparently too stunned to respond right away, so Hermione just went back to her list, smiling.

After a while, Harry seemed to recover enough to ask, still on the floor, "But Hermione… What are you going to do?"

She looked completely radiant.

"I'm going to do my own thing."


End file.
